


source decay

by deliveryservice



Series: born from the sea and the sky [2]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: M/M, Magical Realism, Mythology - Freeform, read warnings pls !!!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-04
Updated: 2020-10-04
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:21:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26811325
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deliveryservice/pseuds/deliveryservice
Summary: The deer sees a child with a heart too big for his body, but a spirit too young for his trial.
Relationships: Iwaizumi Hajime & the Forest, Iwaizumi Hajime/Oikawa Tooru
Series: born from the sea and the sky [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1950406
Comments: 1
Kudos: 27





	source decay

**Author's Note:**

> cw: imagery of death (but only momentarily) in the poem section, me trying to be a poet, talking animals and nature throughout the story. ~symbolism~
> 
> reading the previous story isn't necessary (this can stand alone on its own) but might help with further understanding on what this series is about. (magical realism. it's about magical realism)

O sweet spontaneous

earth how often have

the doting

fingers of

prurient philosophers pinched

and

poked

thee,

has the naughty thumb

of science prodded

thy

— E. E. Cummings

  
  


HAJIME IS BORN NORMAL.

Normal can mean plenty of things: Some could even argue what  _ is _ normal? Is there even a normal, in a world filled with odd splendours and wonderfully coordinated mismatches? For simplicity’s sake, because Hajime is but a simple boy, normal is normal. 

Normal is being born without the blessings of the sky and the moon. Normal is being born without the stars hanging so merrily from the sky they nearly touch the ground on the hour of your birth (Hajime was born on a cloudy summer’s day, and the oddest thing that had happened were clouds refusing to shake off bursts of rain). Normal is being an Average Joe, for most of Hajime’s childhood: No godly glow, no superhuman speed, no prodigious talents that garner him more than a sidelong glance.

Hajime is born normal, is raised normal.

It doesn’t mean he stays that way for long.

⚘

Oikawa is grating his nerves, although that’s nothing new.

“Iwa-chan,” Oikawa whines, looking at Hajime with what the brunette might perceive as a conniving, pleading gaze. Hajime, used to his tactics, only sees a snot-nosed brat. (Hajime is also a snot-nosed brat: He should do well to remember this.) “Come on; you’re telling me you aren’t the  _ teeeeniest _ bit curious?”

“I am not going into the forest,” Hajime deadpans. If Oikawa had been any other person, they would’ve dropped the matter; suggested him and Hajime to look at anything else. They’re seven-years-old, and Hajime is too young to die because  _ someone _ suggested having him traverse a rumoured-to-be haunted forest behind their haunt. “You couldn’t pay me to do that, ‘Kawa.”

Oikawa pouts. “I’ll do your homework for the next two weeks.”

“My grades are better than yours.”

“I’ll let you borrow my FIFA cassette. I know you’ve been eyeing it, Iwa-chan!” Oikawa exclaims. 

Hajime is seven, and he is too young to die. However, Hajime is seven, and he also really,  _ really _ wants to play that FIFA game Oikawa had bought before him. Something about his parents not approving of him playing video games—says they’re bad for his grades.

“Fine. If I die, I’m going to haunt you for the rest of your life,” Hajime warns, ignoring Oikawa’s self-satisfied grin because he’d managed, yet again, to goad Hajime into doing something he very much hadn’t wanted to do.

“I’ll be waiting right here, Iwa-chan!”

“Shut up, Shittykawa.”

Oikawa gasps. “What would your mom think if she heard you saying bad words?!”

Hajime ignores him. He rolls up the cuffs of his pants and his shirt—nervous tic. Oikawa knows this and notices; the Devil snickers. “Come on, Iwa-chan, you’re not gonna let some monsters scare you, right?”

“ _ Rumored  _ monsters,” Hajime mumbles because it’s important to make that separation. There’s a clear difference between real monsters and ones no one knows are even there; Hajime doesn’t believe in ghosts or spirits, and he firmly believes the ‘ghosts’ haunting the woods are the latter. “If I don’t make it back,” he begins, and Oikawa shuts him up by placing his palm—dirty and earth-streaked—over Hajime’s mouth.

“No negative thinking, Iwa-chan.”

“If I die, it’ll be your fault,” Hajime tries to say, but it comes out muffled against Oikawa’s hand. Oikawa is looking entirely too gleeful as he snickers, refusing to retract his palm, so Hajime does what any other child would do: He licks Oikawa’s hand, and the motion leaves his best friend reeling back his hand faster than a heartbeat, crying and whining about how disgusting Hajime is all the while. “Serves you right.”

⚘

Trees are the only thing Hajime sees.

Oikawa had only gone as far as escorting Hajime to the entrance of the forest before running away, claiming he’d be waiting for Hajime at the swing after Hajime had spent at  _ least _ ten minutes inside. (Hajime doesn’t point out neither has a watch.) 

It’s not like Hajime had been expecting anything in particular. Hajime doesn’t believe; thinks Oikawa is being stupid, thinks these  _ woods _ are stupid. Nothing about this is eerie in the slightest. Not the chirping of the cicadas coming from everywhere, following him every step he takes further in. Not the cold wind biting his cheeks, almost slicing, the further Hajime gets from his entry point. 

Certainly not the invisible gazes tracking Hajime’s every step, tiny pinpricks creeping up to his neck from his back, goosebumps fleshing out his arms.

It’s not eerie, and it’s not unnatural, Hajime repeats to himself. It’s just his mind playing tricks on him, and he’s going to come out of this thinking all his worries were stupid and unfounded because ghosts aren’t real. Hajime is just paranoid—that’s it, that’s just the case. 

Somewhere, a branch snaps.

_ CRUNCH. _

“Who’s there?” Hajime calls out. Not spooked, not nervous, no; he’s standing as tall and brave as any seven-year-old could, and it would almost be impressive if his voice weren’t so shrill and squeaky. 

Nobody—nothing—answers him. That is expected.

Shrugging these things off is much easier when there is other stuff Hajime can think about, so as he paces around these empty, verdant woods, Hajime forces himself to think of anything other than where he is. Hajime thinks about the dishes he’ll have to wash after dinner tonight, because he’s making it back, and he won’t let himself think of any other alternative. Hajime thinks about the game he’ll play all weekend because he’d managed to show Oikawa his dare wasn’t so scary after all. Oikawa—Hajime thinks about Oikawa, his best friend Oikawa, in all his annoying, hard-to-hate but hard-to-love splendour. 

Hajime almost doesn’t notice the deer crying out for help.

(Here’s what would’ve happened had Hajime not noticed and went on his merry way pacing about the woodlands: He would’ve finished his dare without any spiritual interference and would’ve lived out the rest of his life being perfectly ordinary, not a single hair touched by something extraordinary. That wouldn’t have been a sad existence—on the contrary, it would’ve done him quite well. 

Alas, that is not what happened; and this, ladies and gentlemen and my fair-weather folks, is why we have this story at all.)

He stops in his tracks the moment he spies, from the corner of his eyes, a deer rendered useless from moving. A rock traps one of its legs, and while Hajime wonders how it’d gotten to that position in the first place, Hajime has his priorities straight. He rushes over to the deer; kneels beside it with his most worried expression. Genuine.

“What happened to you?” Hajime whispers, like the deer has the ability to speak to him. It doesn’t—not yet, at least. The deer lets out a sad, pitiful whine, and attempts to move its trapped feet: It cries out in pain, leaving Hajime to soothe a hand down its back, the way he always does with his cousin’s dogs whenever he visits. The deer doesn’t calm: It still both looks and sounds absolutely miserable, but it has stopped yowling and crying, at the very least. 

“I’ll get you out of here,” Hajime promises.

The forest listens and takes it as an oath.

⚘

Lifting the rock that’d been hindering the deer is more difficult than Hajime had expected.

Hajime knows he is strong: His parents say so, his teachers say so, Oikawa says so. Days spent playing any sport he can get his hands on under the sun, afternoons and twilights killed practicing volleyball with Oikawa; it has all gone to his the muscles of his arms, toning and strengthening the baby fat still persistently clinging to his skin. (As it should: He’s only seven.) 

Hajime is the champion of their neighbourhood’s youth arm-wrestling unofficial matches, and no one doubts Hajime is strong, least of all not Hajime himself. This doesn’t change the fact that lifting the rock, roughly only twice the size of his fist is the most difficult thing—trial—he has ever done.

“No wonder you were stuck there,” Hajime grunts, still trying to lift the rock up high enough he can throw it away from the suffering deer. His muscles strain and cry in protest: This is when others would’ve given up, would’ve left with a last, sorry glance at the deer and act like it hadn’t weighed on their conscience. But Hajime, seven-year-old Iwaizumi Hajime, refuses to do that—to give up—even if his whole body rebels and he knows Oikawa must be worried by now because at this point, he has long passed the ten-minute mark.

Iwaizumi Hajime stays and he tries, tries and tries, even after the midday sun has moulded into dusk and he can barely feel the pads of his thumbs. Just how is this thing so heavy?

Even the deer whines in protest seeing the state of their would-be rescuer.  _ Go, _ the deer tries to say;  _ go, child, you are too young for this trial; leave me, the forest will take care of me. _

Hajime doesn’t—can’t—listen. He clamps, hard, on his lower lip, ignores the blood licking up to meet his tongue from the force of it as he tries to tug the rock, refusing to give up. “I’m not leaving you,” Hajime grunts. Doesn’t even bother to wipe the sweat away from his forehead, even as the trickles have turned to a downpour.

The deer sees a child with a heart too big for his body, but a spirit too young for his trial.

The forest sees a worthy soul.

Newfound strength fills Hajime’s body like a cold bucket of ice, and Hajime gasps because this is nothing like he has ever felt before. His fingertips tingle and freeze and burn, a bonfire on a harsh winter’s day sparkles wildly in his chest. And just like that, Hajime is  _ strong _ , strong enough to lift the rock and throw it down the steep hill of leaves, far, further away from the deer. His body sings with the promise of something foreign, something new, and for one second, Hajime entertains the idea that he’d been possessed by a spirit.

“Thank you, child,” the deer says.

Hajime recoils like he’d been struck, yelping and yelling and falling back flat on his arse. “You’re talking?!” he asks, eyeing the deer with fear and trepidation and wonder. “Am I dreaming? Making this up? This can’t be real.”

“Insolent  _ child _ ,” they snap. The deer sneers. Hajime wonders if he’s about to be cursed and resolves never to tell Oikawa about this: He’ll never let Hajime live this down. “If you hadn’t just passed your trial, I would’ve  _ stomped _ right over your fragile little body.”

“I’m sorry,” Hajime squeaks. He is still confused and all sorts of weirded out—so, in conclusion, this has to be a dream. There’s no way it isn’t.

“Hmph.” They huff. “You must be thinking, ‘this has to be a dream.’”

“Um—um, no I’m not. You’re… totally real! So real.”

Acting has never been Hajime’s strong suit. The skill is something more up Oikawa’s alley; Hajime is a simple boy, and takes things, does things, as they are. Doesn’t care much for the frivolous, for anything less than real. Maybe this is why he’s not taking this very easily. 

Or maybe he’s just not taking this easily because the deer he’d just saved is talking down to him like he’s stupid.

The deer looks at him, trying to find something. Hajime squirms; he is still strewn across the leaf-piled floor, dirt tracking his pants and blisters forming on the pads of his elbows. (That will sting later.) “It’s too late to change this now,” the deer murmurs.

“Change what?”

“None of your business,” they say. “Not yet.”

Hajime goes from scared and apprehensive to annoyed. If there’s one thing that annoys him, something that gets under his cool, level-headed skin, it is being excluded from something Hajime  _ knows _ he is involved in. “When will it be my business, then?”

The deer pauses. Their eyes glaze over momentarily, and Hajime wonders if it’s going to drop dead. He doesn’t know the deer had been communicating with the forest.

“How old are you, boy?”

“Seven!” Hajime is very proud of this. Seven is when he can start sitting with the big boys at school. although Hajime doubts Oikawa would ever let him do this if he didn’t bring him along, too.

“Too young,” the deer says. “Come back on the midnight of your twelfth birthday.”

“Are you saying I have to sneak out?” Hajime asks. He’s never snuck out before, much less at night; and while less than a day ago Hajime had been a skeptic at best and non-believer at worst, Hajime  _ knows _ now there is something odd and foreign and  _ wondrous _ about these woods. Visiting on a moonlit night doesn’t sound daring so much as it is nearly terrifying.

The deer doesn’t deign him with a response. They don’t even trod away from him; there’s a luminescent light, and then the deer is disappearing, evaporating, like the wind.

Hajime is alone.

  
  


didn't the night end, wasn't the earth

safe when it was planted

didn't we plant the seeds,

weren't we necessary to the earth,

the vines, were they harvested?

— Louise Glück

  
  


HAJIME TURNS TWELVE.

Or rather: He is about to turn twelve. The afternoon before his twelfth birthday finds Hajime standing by the entrance of an all-too-familiar, all-too-strange forest, the draft of the wind kissing his cheeks like an old friend. Oikawa stands behind him, peering and too quiet for his standards, watching Hajime stare across the stretch of land and too-tall trees that’d brought panic to him and their families all those years ago, when Hajime went in and only came out hours later, sweat matting his forehead and dirt on his knees.

“Iwa-chan,” Oikawa says; looks suspicious. “Don’t tell me you’re going in there again.”

Hajime is quiet.

“Iwa-chan!”

“I won’t tell you, then.”

“You’re being an idiot,” Oikawa hisses. He puts his palm on top of Hajime’s shoulder and tries to tug him back. Hajime is stronger, and stays rooted on his patch by the earth. “Iwa-chan, you’re not going back. I won’t let you.”

“I need answers,” is what Hajime stays instead. Not an ‘I’ll listen to you, Oikawa’, or even an agreeing grunt. “This is the only way I’ll get them.”

Oikawa’s eyes narrow; and then they brighten, and his fingers drop from Hajime’s shoulders. “Alright, then.”

Something is not right.

Hajime turns to look back at his best friend, question and wariness swirling together like iced tea and sticky liquid sugar in his eyes. “Just alright?” he echoes, simultaneously unconvinced and suspicious.

Oikawa puts on one of his smiles, and it’s one of Hajime’s least favorites. Not that he really dislikes any of Oikawa’s smiles—you’d have to kill him to say it out loud, but Oikawa’s smiles are nice. Blinding. Comforting. This one, though, Hajime’s not very fond of: It’s the smile Oikawa Tooru wears when he has something up his sleeve, and it’ll be too late by then for Hajime to uncover his scheme.

“Just alright,” Oikawa agrees.

⚘

It was not, as a matter of fact, just alright. 

Thirty minutes to midnight finds him standing outside his house, crawling form hiding behind overgrown bushes as he whips up a course of action. There is always the easiest choice, the obvious one: Hajime could saunter in the forest and (try to) talk to the cedar trees, maybe lay a hand or two on old, oak branches to butter them up. Say something about it’s almost his birthday, though Hajime has a sinking feeling the forest already knows when his birthday is, anyway. There is also the option of sneaking around, creeping his way around the woods and seeing if he can sneak past by walking—crawling—on the ground, but there’s the question of the forest floor’s allegiance, and all of the sudden that sounds like a terrible no-good idea.

Hajime resigns himself to asking the forest and talking to red pines.

It should be easy; Hajime sets himself up for a brisk pace as he half-walks half-jogs towards the forest, never once looking behind his back. His parents have stopped trying to surprise him every midnight on his birthday since he turned ten, and that’s alright; Hajime is making his own surprises. Hajime arrives at the playground in record time, panting and sweaty and most definitely in need of a shower (it’ll be his first shower as a twelve year-old later, isn’t that exciting?); the obvious next step should be walking behind the swings and slides and into the dirt-tracked, unclear forest trail, but there is Oikawa sitting on the swings, pulling off an ugly look that is simultaneously smug and mortified.

If volleyball doesn’t work out, Hajime decides he’ll suggest Oikawa to act for soap operas instead.

“What are  _ you _ doing here?” Hajime asks. Tries to sound calm, keeps his affronted anger bottled up and the keys to unlock the lid thrown somewhere far beyond his reach. 

“I should be the one asking you that!” Oikawa has the audacity to stick his tongue out at Hajime, first finger stretching down his cheek—cheekily. “Iwa-chan, you could get seriously hurt! I know the ‘spirits of the forests,’” it’s impressive how Oikawa hadn’t physically used air quotes and Hajime can still hear them clear as day, “didn’t hurt you last time, but what if they do this time?”

Hajiime is a sensible boy. He shouldn’t have so much faith in the very-much-alive forest—shouldn’t even believe the odd experience that happened a few years back was anything more than an extreme bout of afternoon, fervent daydreaming. An episode conjured by his own brain to fuck with his head. That happens, doesn’t it? Summer heat messes with your mind. Sinks its claws into your psyche, conjures images worthy of Bacchae. Mad hallucinations, they call them. Episodes of madness. 

Hajime is a sensible boy. He is not mad.

“It’ll be fine,” Hajime says. He sounds far more sure than he feels.

Oikawa doesn’t snarl, because that’s just not something his face is capable of, all soft edges and the barest of sharp slants. He raises one, delicate brow, the motion so smooth he must’ve practiced it in front of the mirror one, two times—maybe one, two hundred times. 

“If you’re sure, you’ll let me come with you.”

“What? Oikawa,  _ no _ .”

“You said it’ll be fine—then nothing will happen if I go in with you. I won’t get hurt.”

You shouldn’t have so much faith in me, Hajime cannot say; because Oikawa  _ can _ , and Hajime wouldn’t have it any other way—Hajime trusts and believes the forest won’t lay a sinister hand on him, but the question remains for Oikawa. It scares him. Leaves him feeling hopeless, hapless. 

“Please, Oikawa.” Hajime has never begged, is not a beggar; but if Oikawa’s safety is at stake, then he’ll beg until his knees scrape raw, until his tongue bleeds with pleas.

“No can do, Iwa-chan. I’ve made up my mind, and walking back home alone at this hour is  _ scary _ .”

“Oikawa.”

“Either walk me home, or I’ll follow you into the woods.”

Hajime wears a watch this time, and he can see he’s running out of time. It’s five minutes to midnight, and the sands of time carry on, even as he pauses, lingers. “Fine,” Hajime snaps. It’s not a decision he’s thought through: Hajime is strong, and he is brave, but he’s not known for his smarts. 

He offers his hand, right palm kissing the sky. “If you let go and get lost, I’m not going to look for you.”

They both know he’s lying. Hajime has never been a good liar, and he doubts he ever will be. That’s more of Oikawa’s thing than his.

“How mean, Iwa-chan.” Oikawa pouts and protests; he takes Hajime’s hand anyway.

⚘

Petrichor and nutty wood, dead wood, rotten wood, flood his nose.

Oikawa tightens his grip on Hajime’s hands and clings tighter to Hajime’s ratty fox-torn jacket, the chattering of his teeth (it is a cold night, after all) drowned by the  _ crunchcrunchCRUNCH _ of leaves that meet the soles of their feet and cicadas perched above them, singing formless odes into the wind. Hajime is lucky to have worn a jacket—Oikawa is not, and as his teeth chatters, his body does too, fingers icy cold in Hajime’s grip and shoulders hunching to keep himself warm.

“Do you want my jacket?” Hajime asks. He keeps walking, not looking back, but never once letting go of Oikawa’s hand.

“No,” Oikawa rejects. His voice is pitifully low, jitters on his teeth. “I’m fine.”

“You don’t sound fine.”

“Well, I am,” he snaps. Oikawa has always been too proud, sometimes.

Hajime takes off his jacket. The cold happily laps up his skin; summer night’s frostbite grazing his elbows, the wind tasting his fingers. “Take this.” He thrusts his jacket into Oikawa’s hands, and Oikawa protests, but doesn’t put up much of a fight. He only whines Hajime’s name, a petulant ‘IWA-CHAN!’ five times, before he tugs the jacket around his shoulders, sighing in relief. Hajime snorts and continues walking.

“Where are we going, anyway?” Oikawa asks. His voice has calmed since he slid on Hajime’s jacket, and some of that cocky, teasing lilt of his is back. “I feel like we’re just walking around in circles.”

“We’ve been pushing forward,” Hajime says, because he doesn’t know how he’s supposed to say he doesn’t know where he’s going either. He’s trying to find the spot where he’d first seen the deer, that fever dream, but it’s dark and neither of them brought a flashlight. His eyes strain in the absence of light—it takes time for him to adjust, but by the time Hajime thinks they’ve gotten to where he’d last spent a majority of his time in these woods, the dark greets his sight like an old friend.

“Iwa-chan,” Oikawa whispers, “I want to go home.”

“We can’t,” Hajime retorts. “Not yet.”

“What are we waiting for?”

“Answers. A sign. I don’t know—something.” 

Hajime doesn’t find ‘something’; something finds him.

⚘

the moon howls

white streaking his skin

(white of the sky, white light, white of the covenant,

white of purity and life

(but life is red?) no it is not)

‘our champion returns,’ chants the sky;

‘our champion returns,’ sings the moon;

‘our champion returns.’ oak branches dance.

wind cuts his cheek

wind tastes his skin

wind grazes his lips

‘o champion.’ 

the stars pick a laurel 

(from the sky)

the laurel gold-leaves

the laurel heavy

the laurel gods’ blessing

the laurel strewn across his head—brushing back spiky bangs

‘o champion, take our gifts,’ the spirits laugh (and sing. they sing)

one curls smoky fingers around his wrist

his pulse stops.

(his pulse stops)

one grips his neck

his pulse stops.

(his pulse stops.)

something in hajime dies.

something mortal,

something warm, something red (red, violence and love and life),

something alive. (of course it’d been alive—how else would it have died?)

(oikawa watches his friend fall;

taken by the spirits,

he weeps, ‘GIVE HIM BACK!’)

‘insolent child,’ the leaves piling

around him bite, ‘you are foolish to command us.

you have no right to command us.’

‘that’s my best friend,’ oikawa sobs.

sobs, weeps, cries, wails; cheeks blotchy red.

snot dried and cracked under his nostrils.

‘give him back.’

hajime, hajime, hajime.

hajime, alive. hajime, dead. hajime, chosen. hajime, hajime?

⚘

Hajime opens his eyes to hair in his mouth and something wet and warm permeating his shirt, soaking his chest.

“What…?” Hajime croaks, tries to get his eyes to work. Why won’t his eyes work? 

“Iwa-chan?” Oikawa asks, his voice broken and soft. Hajime blinks once, twice; the first to wake his sight, the second to stop them from going into overdrive, focusing his gaze unto Oikawa. Oikawa, who he’s looking at for the first time; Oikawa, who has never been so sharp, so sad, so broken, so beautiful. 

“Why are you crying?” he manages to say. Oikawa forces himself off of him, looking at Hajime like he’s a dead man walking. (In a way, he is.)

“I thought I’d lost you,” Oikawa says. He touches Hajime’s cheek; his fingers are cold and clammy, but Hajime doesn’t mind. He really doesn’t mind. “I thought…”

  
“I’m still here, aren’t I?” Hajime grunts. He has never been soft, has never been good with comfort and warmth and love and all the things he wishes he could give to Oikawa, one day. 

“You weren’t,” Oikawa accuses. 

“What do you mean?”

“I thought you’d died, Iwa-chan. I thought—I thought you were gone, and I was never going to see you again, and—and.”

“I’m not dead,” Hajime says.

He isn’t.

“No, you aren’t,” Oikawa repeats, still dazed and struck with departed grief. “But you were. I  _ swear _ you were.”

Oikawa pranks him, sometimes, but Hajime gets the feeling this isn’t—one of his pranks, he means. If it were, Oikawa wouldn’t be shaking, even though Hajime’s jacket hugs and warms him. If it were, Oikawa wouldn’t be clutching Hajime’s hands, gripping them tightly enough Hajime can’t feel his fingers (he doesn’t mind). If it were, Oikawa wouldn’t be touching him, holding him, with all the fervent need of someone whose love had died and returned, (not) Orpheus’ feat. 

Hajime does the only thing he can. He picks himself up, tugging Oikawa along with him. Oikawa is heavy, but Hajime is strong; strong enough he’d reckon he could lift Oikawa with his pinky. He’s never been this strong before. 

“Let’s go home.”

“You were dead.”

“Let’s go home.”

“ _ Fine _ ,” Oikawa bites. He takes off Hajime’s jacket and tugs it around Hajime’s shoulders, scowling. “Walk me back—and we are never going in here again.”

‘We’, doesn’t mean Hajime can’t do it alone. He puts the jacket back on Oikawa, like a game of jacket tag, and twines his fingers with Oikawa’s before the brunette can shove the jacket back to him.

They don’t talk about it. 

  
  


Zeus you win you always win

the whole oxygen of power

belongs to you

sleep cannot seize it

time does not tire it

your Mt Olympos glows like one white stone around this law

nothing vast enters the lives of mortals without ruin

— Anne Carson

**Author's Note:**

> thank u for reading! <3 i'm [genshinkaeya](https://twitter.com/) on twt


End file.
